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Chapter 1 : Introduction
Annex 1
In order to listen to the views of the community on issues of principle and legislative process in the Basic Law relating to constitutional development, the Task Force has met a total of 77 organizations and individuals between 16 January and 24 March 2004, including political parties, Legislative Council Members, political groups, academics, labour and business
organizations, Basic Law Committee members, the legal profession, Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of District Councils, members of the 18 District Councils, and Election Committee members. Some of them have provided written submissions during, before or after the meetings. Except for those submissions for which confidentiality is requested, copies of all 91 submissions
received by the Task Force have been included in Annex 1. Copies of these submissions in their entirety have also been forwarded to the relevant departments of the Central Authorities. Copies of these submissions have also been made available from 1 March 2004 at five Public Enquiry Service Centres of the Home Affairs Department for public
inspection, and these collections are updated regularly. A set of the submissions has also been deposited with the Legislative Council Secretariat.
2. The list of the organizations and individuals met by the Task Force, together with dates of the meetings, is at Chapter 2 of Annex 1.
Annex 2
3. After meeting with the organizations and individuals, the Task Force summarized their views as they related to the 12 questions on issues of principle and legislative process in the form of a template. The Task Force then issued the completed template in draft form to the relevant organizations and individuals for their confirmation of the accuracy of the content
and their agreement to make the summary public.
4. As of now, a number of organizations and individuals have confirmed the relevant summaries and given consent to make public the summaries. A total of 38 templates containing the summary of views on issues of legislative process are included in Annex 2 in chronological order of the date of meetings. Among them, a number of the templates
have yet to be confirmed by the relevant parties as at the date of print. In our follow-up with the relevant parties, we have made it clear to them that the Task Force aims to maintain a high degree of transparency in handling submissions from organizations and individuals whom the Task Force has met, and that if we did not receive their replies by the deadline, we
would assume that they had no objection to our publishing the summaries. However, to be fair, we would include in the record an annotation that the summary has not been confirmed by the relevant party. The relevant summaries are at Annex 2 and have been annotated accordingly. In addition, we are still processing a number of summaries arising from recent meetings and
will publish them in due course.
5. As there might be errors or omissions in the compilation and printing process, we would appreciate it if the parties concerned would inform us of any errors and omissions as soon as possible so that we could issue a corrigendum at a later stage.
6. The summaries of views are intended to record the gist of the views expressed. If members of the public are interested to know more about the positions of these organizations and individuals relating to issues of legislative process, they may wish to refer to the submissions of the relevant party, where available, in Annex 1.
7. We wish to take the opportunity to make it clear that the Task Force fully respects the views of the relevant organizations and individuals. The summary will not replace the written submission they handed in. As mentioned in paragraph 1, their submissions will be passed to the Central Authorities and made public in their entirety.
Annex 3
8. In addition to meetings with organizations and individuals, the Task Force has been receiving views on issues of legislative process from the community through various channels, including electronic mail, fax hotline (2523 3207) and the Constitutional Development Website. Quite a number of the members of the public submitted their views by post to the
Constitutional Development Task Force Secretariat or through other Government departments.
9. As this report focuses on issues of legislative process, we have accordingly included public views which relate to these issues in Annex 3. The submissions are arranged, where possible, in chronological order of the date of submission.
10. We wish to point out that in some submissions, members of the public expressed their views on issues of legislative process as well as on issues of principles and other issues relating to constitutional development. In order to maintain the integrity of these incoming letters or mails, we have published them in their entirety (including the parts relating to
legislative process and parts relating to other issues). At this stage, we have not included in Annex 3 submissions which contain views relating only to issues of principle or other views relating to constitutional development. We will publish these submissions in full when we deal with issues of principle at a later stage.
Constitutional Development Website
11. We have posted on the Constitutional Development website five specific questions relating to issues of legislative process. We have also provided, in respect of each question, a stand-alone e-mail reply facility. For statistical purposes, we have treated the e-mail replies to these questions from the same individual on the same date as one entry, whilst e-mail
replies from the same individual received on a different date will be treated as a different entry.
Handling of Personal Data
12. In order to safeguard privacy, we have removed senders' addresses when publishing their electronic mail in this report. Other personal data, such as residential addresses, identity card numbers and telephone numbers, where provided, have also been removed. In addition, we have removed commercial advertisements printed in the electronic mail. The content are
otherwise published in their entirety.
13. Similarly, we have adopted this approach in handling submissions which came in by post or by fax. All personal data, including return addresses, fax numbers, identity card numbers have been removed.
14. Where the senders requested anonymity, we respect their wishes and have removed their names from the relevant submissions. We have encountered a small number of submissions in which the senders have not provided us with a valid return address or fax number. We are unable to ascertain the wishes of these persons as to whether they would want their identity to be
made known when their views are published. In these circumstances, we have removed their names from the relevant submissions.
Further Submissions
15. To take matters forward, the Task Force has taken stock of views expressed on issues of legislative process in late March and compiled this report. Hence, only submissions received up to 24 March 2004 have been included in these annexes. Further submissions received by the Task Force after this date will be published separately at a later stage for public
inspection, and the same procedures mentioned above will be adopted.
16. If there is anything amiss or left out in compiling this report, we will issue a corrigendum as and when necessary. We apologize for any inconvenience that might be caused.
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